I can't literally use this, but it's what I've had in mind for awhile in terms of the basis of my narrative. I'll need to focus it more on my research interests, but I think it gets across me and my motivations for becoming a counselor well. Thoughts would be appreciated.
It's Tuesday morning, and Lakisha is crying again. Class starts in three minutes, and I have fifteen other students who need me to guide them through another day of Macbeth, whether or not Lakisha has her head down, tears pouring. This is not what I signed up for. Literally it's not, because I'd never planned to work with low SES students in a school that, two years before, had a 45% graduation rate. I knew I'd be terrible at “behavior management” [what makes teaching one of the most difficult fields to go into], and there was little doubt that I, as a young, white, soft-spoken middle-class intern was going to change that anytime soon. That's not to say it can't be done; my peers did admirable jobs, and I still have such admiration for the school. But it wasn't right for me.
Moreso than that, though, I didn't sign up to ignore the crying young woman in the corner, the oft-homeless young woman who'd moved four times in the past year, the gay youth who was sleeping on couches as his mother overdosed herself into the hospital again. I didn't get into teaching to ignore the very real problems my students had; I got into it because I was miserable in high school, I felt disconnected, I felt disenfranchised, and I wanted to be different than just another arm of an oppressive institution. I wanted to address the real issues. I wanted to take Lakisha into the hall and talk to her for an hour, show her I wasn't going to give up or leave, try to reach her despite the aforementioned burdens because her pain meant a hell of a lot more to me than identifying Shakespeare's usage of blank verse. But, as a teacher, I had other promises to keep. So while my mentor helped triage with Lakisha, I launched into yet another forgettable lesson, fiddling while Rome burned.
My mentor teachers insisted that I was not nearly as bad as I thought I was. I imagine they were right. And I also believe that, given time, I could have gotten closer to connecting Beowulf and Macbeth to the very real issues my students faced [Grendel as metaphor for existential terror, Macbeth's supposed destiny as metaphor for the track to drop-outs and dead-end jobs so many people and institutions had told my students they were meant for]. I could have. But I could not control them. I did not want to control them. I'd immersed myself in feminist theory that had convinced me the individual ought to be able to decide for themselves who they should be and how they should express for themselves, and yet I found myself in an institution that necessitated I tell my students what to do and how to do it. Even veteran teachers can only skirt the edges of the “real;” the Language Arts Standards don't have room for that kind of connection.
If I wanted real, I wasn't going to find it teaching high school. If I wanted to really connect with people, to really attack, head-on, the abuse, the low self-esteem, the systemic devaluation of their race, gender, sexual orientation, and more on an individual basis, I needed to be a counselor. But moreso than that, I needed to be a counselor in an academic setting. Someone who could work individually but also outreach, bridge communal oppression, call-out privilege, teach students, professionals, and parents alike how to respectfully address the needs and process of actualization that we all go through.
And yes, it's personal for me. I got into teaching because I'd thought Counseling Psychology was too risky. Who would want me to talk to them? What on earth could I do to help? Was I not despicable and worthless? The lies my father told me. But also the lies I told myself. For I was making safe decisions, decisions that would risk nothing, disturb no one, regardless of the possibility of my own happiness. But when I hit bottom teaching, when the “safe choices” brought me to the very point I was so desperately trying to avoid, I realized that I needed to take risks. I needed to pursue what felt right, what would fulfill me, despite the so significant chance of failure. Counseling Psychology was half of the equation. The rest was my own gender.
I'd fought it for years. I felt delusional, insane for having an irrational desire to become female. I got into feminism hoping that I could be a feminine male instead, and although it fit me so well academically, politically [and, so it goes, personally], it was not enough. Teaching taught me that I needed to take risks. And I could survive mistakes when I made them. So, midway through, I decided to transition. And I'd never felt more hopeful.
In many ways, I think my transsexuality is what drives my desire to counsel. Part of being trans, for me [and for many others], is the nearly constant pain. The sense that you are wrong, discordant on a fundamental and irrevocable level. And every “male” you check on forms, every “he” you hear, every “males over here, females over here” burns even as you know such a feeling is insane. Being so detached from my body, I could not understand love of clothes, love of food, of touch, of sensation. I knew detachment. And I knew pain. And even as I failed in small talk, joking and evading, I was so engaged in the suffering of others. I felt it, for I knew pain so well. I wanted to help them, for I'd always wished someone had helped me. It was the only thing that was real. The only thing I really cared about. So my conversations were counseling. My feminist politics were driven by a desire to stop hurt in all its forms. I, if unfiltered, intense, because I did not care for status, for being remembered, for being respected. I cared about stopping hurt. And everything in between was a tool towards doing it.
As I transition, I have grown happier. I am coming to terms with myself, and I'm glad for the time to develop and adjust. But I think, after this “cocooning,” that I'll be well ready to engage in what I love. Indeed, over the summer, I was a Resident Assistant for the Governor's School for Sciences and Engineering. It was my fourth year, but it was undeniably my best. Knowing myself, I was able to truly be real. And, in turn, I was able to reach my students. We practically had mini-group therapy sessions, where I facilitated them engaging each other, finding that they were not alone in their various insecurities and pains. I genuinely helped them. And I still do. I write to them, every few weeks, and as some engage depression, some engage their own gender dysphoria, some engage worse, I feel that I have made a difference, that I have finally found what I am good at. And I so desperately want a platform to do more.
That's where I'm at. I, finally, know what I want to do. I feel confident that I can do it. And I feel assured that, in an academic environment, I can engage both my intellectual and emotional needs through a feminist framework. All that's left is to start that career. And, with your acceptance, I cannot wait to do just that.
